Health

New Delhi, August 04: The fear of H1N1 influenza has been rising and so is the number of cases.

Here’s a status check on the virus and what the health ministry is doing to combat it.

The virus has surfaced in at least 22 cities across the country with as many as 558 people testing positive for swine flu in India.

Of them, 470 have been discharged after treatment, the rest were under treatment.

One of the swine flu cases proved to be fatal after a teenaged girl died in Pune on August 3.

New Delhi, August 04: The health ministry will issue new guidelines to private hospitals on handling swine flu patients, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said Tuesday, a day after India’s first death from the influenza A (H1N1) virus in Pune.

The 14-year-old who died in Pune Monday after she was admitted to a private hospital got the correct treatment “too late”, Azad told a television channel.

The ministry, which had been mulling the issue, would come up with new health guidelines for private hospitals Tuesday, he said.

Washington, August 04: Is your waistline bothering you in middle age? Try regular yoga, says a new study.

The study, led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre (FHCRC), is the first of its kind to measure the effects of yoga on weight.

The study involved 15,500 healthy, middle-aged men and women who were asked to complete a written survey recalling their physical activity (including yoga) and weight history between the ages 45 and 55.

Toronto, August 04: Heavy drinkers of beer and spirits are at much higher risk of developing cancer, says a study by Canadian epidemiologists and cancer researchers in Montreal.

The first-ever study to establish link between drinking and cancer shows that heavy drinkers face higher risk of developing oesophageal cancer sevenfold, colon cancer by 80 percent and lung cancer by 50 percent.

Toronto, August 04: Heavy drinkers of beer and spirits are at much higher risk of developing cancer, says a study by Canadian epidemiologists and cancer researchers in Montreal.

The first-ever study to establish link between drinking and cancer shows that heavy drinkers face higher risk of developing oesophageal cancer sevenfold, colon cancer by 80 percent and lung cancer by 50 percent.

Lucknow, August 04: Underlining the need for developing cost-effective Medicare services, former President APJ Abdul Kalam on Monday said all research should reach the masses in the form of medicines and vaccines.

“The challenge and aim of medical research should be to evolve cost effective cure for ailments like cancer, develop new generation vaccines for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis,” Kalam said at the annual Research Showcase of Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University here.

London, August 04: A new approach to cancer treatment which radically increases the effectiveness of radiotherapy has been identified by researchers.

The study, published in the journal Cancer Research, showed that treating mice with certain drugs improved the stability of blood vessels in the tumours.

Pune, August 04: India reported its first A(H1N1) flu death after a 14-year-old girl student died in Pune on Monday of the influenza A(H1N1) virus, an official said.

The girl was on a ventilator for the past many days at an ICU in a hospital in Pune, the official said.

India has reported over 500 A(H1N1) flu cases with the Maharashtra city being the worst hit. Pune has reported most of the cases in the country.

–IANS

Hong Kong, August 03: Scientists have identified a class of immune cells that floods the brain soon after a stroke, causing inflammation and more neurological damage.

In an experiment, Japanese researchers showed how mice that were deficient in these immune cells suffered far less brain damage after a stroke compared to normal mice.

Hong Kong, August 03: One of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer may originate in the cells lining the mammary ducts, which can be targeted in the fight against the disease, experts in Australia say.

Basal breast cancers account for 20 percent of all breast cancers and are among the most aggressive. They occur in women carrying mutations of the tumor-suppressing gene BRCA1 and have long been thought to originate in breast stem cells.

Washington, August 03: If you are among the least fit segment of the population, then you face twice the mortality risk of even those who are just a bit more in shape, says a new study.

A research team from Stanford University led by Victor F. Froelicher and Jonathan Myers performed exercise tests and followed more than 4,300 subjects from 1986 to 2006, none of whom had a history of heart disease.

Fitness and physical activity levels were measured using treadmill tests and questionnaires, and mortality rates were tracked during the 20-year study period.

Washington, August 03: The size of a placenta can determine whether a foetus survives or not. A small placenta can mean the foetus is starved of food and oxygen and may cause it to die, says a new study.

Limits in current technology prevent monitoring the growth of the placenta, which, like the petrol tank of a car, fuels the foetus.

Foetal death, or intrauterine foetal demise (IUFD), affects 30,000 women every year in the US alone. Until now, there has been no easy way to determine how much “petrol” is left in the placenta’s tank.

Washington, August 03: Physicians are turning to pacemakers, devices typically used in heart problems, to help ease severe gastric disorders in children.

In June, surgeons implanted a pacemaker in a 16-year-old patient with gastroparesis, a debilitating stomach condition that affects the way the body processes food.

This is the first time the procedure has been performed in a child at Nationwide Children’s Hospital-Columbus (NCH-C), which is now one of the few institutions in the US offering this type of treatment.

Yaounde, August 03: A woman from Cameroon has been found to be infected with an AIDS-like virus that came from gorillas, French researchers reported on Sunday.

The woman, who has no symptoms of HIV infection, is well and was likely infected by another person, not an animal, the researchers said.

Their findings suggest this newly discovered gorilla virus is circulating among people, they reported in the journal Nature Medicine.

Beijing, August 03: A second man has died of pneumonic plague in northwest China, in an outbreak that prompted authorities to seal off an entire town where about a dozen people were infected with the highly contagious deadly lung disease, a state news agency said. The man who died Sunday was identified only as 37-year-old Danzin from Ziketan, the stricken town in Qinghai province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Sydney, August 03: Teenagers whose mothers have mental health problems are likely to suffer behavioural problems, says a new study.

Using data from the Mater University Study of Pregnancy (MUSP), Belinda Lloyd from the University of Queensland (UQ) studied maternal mental health and its impact on children.

The MUSP is a study of more than 7,000 mothers and their children born at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital between 1981-83.

Hamburg, August 03: Summer is the season of lawn games and activities like indiaca, petanque, skittles, badminton, Frisbee or boomerang throwing. They all have two things in common: they are participant sports and they are very entertaining. They are also excellent at keeping the body fit.

‘Those sports are played outdoors, they all involve intensive movement and help your bodily coordination,’ says Theodor Stemper, a sports doctor at the University of Wuppertal in western Germany.

London, August 03: Scientists have developed a new chemical imaging technique which could one day help in the fight against atherosclerosis, the condition in which an artery wall thickens as a result of a build-up of fatty materials such as cholesterol. If the artery wall thickens, it can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

London, August 03: Babies exposed to alcohol in the womb and those who are small at birth develop sleep problems as eight-year-olds, says a new study.

Poor sleep and sleep disturbances in children are associated with obesity, depressive symptoms and attention deficit hyperactivity.

Principal investigator Katri Rikknen, Psychologist at the University of Helsinki, Finland, said even low levels of weekly prenatal exposure to alcohol have adverse effects on sleep quantity and quality during childhood.

Washington, August 03: Carrots, rich in beta-carotene, are not the only food beneficial to your eyes, points out Silke Restemeyer, spokesperson for the German Nutrition Society (DGE). Spinach, tomatoes, broccoli and mangoes also contain beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A.

As Restemeyer explains, vitamin A helps protect the eye’s retina and lens from free radicals, which are unstable molecules that can damage cells.

Sydney, August 03: Female twins who are small at birth have a greater likelihood of being obese as adults, according to a new study.
Scientists in Britain and Otago University (OU) in Australia found that twin girls with a lower birth weight were found in later life to have higher amounts of fat compared to lean body tissue than the twins who were heavier at birth. They conducted a study of 3,170 female twins aged 18 to 80 in Britain.

Conversely, those who were heavier at birth had a higher ratio of lean body mass to fat mass once in adulthood.

Washington, August 03: A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday’s edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

Washington, August 03: Kidney detoxification is a long process. Juice fasting and a diet high in raw food can greatly benefit the kidneys.

Our liver and kidneys enlarge due to the added workload of protein metabolism. If you are an individual with kidney problems, diabetes, hypoglycemia or hepatitis, a high protein diet worsens the condition. A damaged liver or kidney does not do well when overloaded with protein digestion. When the filtering organs are overburdened, the blood becomes more toxic and tends to aggravate other conditions.

New Delhi, August 03: In a move that might streamline the patient load in the Emergency Department, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will soon be starting a new department for emergency medicine.

According to rough estimates, the Emergency Department at the AIIMS gets around 500 cases a day. The authorities at the institute are hopeful of welcoming the first batch of students in January 2010.

The proposal for the new department has already been approved by the academic committee and courses for the post-graduate students of MD-EM are now being designed.

Chandigarh, August 02: Almost two years after an HIV-positive woman was allegedly sexually abused by staff members of a leading hospital and the state AIDS control society, the victim has resumed treatment at the facility following the arrest of the two accused.

According to the police, accused James, a senior technician of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh and Nek Ram, a counsellor with Chandigarh AIDS Control Society were arrested Friday.

A case of rape has been registered against the accused.